


still living with your ghost

by OceanTheSoulRebel



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Caleb Widogast Needs a Hug, Canon-Typical Violence, Ghost!Molly, Ghosts, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mighty Nein as Family, POV Caleb Widogast, Pining, Slight Canon-Divergence, Spoilers for C2E25-30, Timeline is expanded a little bit, in-game dialog, past major character death, they've been traveling together most of a year
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-20
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:08:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28185174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OceanTheSoulRebel/pseuds/OceanTheSoulRebel
Summary: In this space, Molly leaned into his hand, a pleased smile curling over his lips. He pressed a kiss to Caleb’s palm, his mouth a smoldering ember against his skin, and Caleb almost pulled back. Almost, but didn’t.In this space, Molly sat up and Caleb scooted closer, and they both leaned in. Caleb’s fingers slid through the messy waves of Molly’s hair in an unspoken question and Molly nodded his answer. He heard Molly’s breath hitch in his throat when he leaned forward and pressed their lips together.In this space, there were no orders, no contracts to fulfill, no revenge to be taken, no mysterious and shadowed past to bring into the purifying burn of the light of day. They had all the time in the world. Caleb slid from his perch on the log to lay beside Molly in his bedroll, and they tangled together with lazy, unhurried kisses and exploratory touches.In this space, it was always just the break of dawn. In this space, it was always soft. In this space, it was always just the two of them.Mollymauk haunted Caleb's every step.
Relationships: Mollymauk Tealeaf & Caleb Widogast, Mollymauk Tealeaf/Caleb Widogast
Comments: 9
Kudos: 29





	still living with your ghost

**Author's Note:**

> Just got into CR, and my first fic in this franchise is Big Sad... I have a lot of feelings about Caleb, about Molly, about them all. I knew about this happening going into the show, but the actual events still caught me by the gut.
>
>>   
>  _You're still here_   
>  _With me all the time_   
>  _You're still here_   
>  _When I close my eyes_   
>  _I still see you_   
>  _I still feel you_   
>  _And we'll never be apart_   
>  _You're still here_   
>  _Still here in my heart_   
> 
> 
> _"Still Here" by Natasha Bedingfield, lyrics by Dianne Warren_

Lorenzo’s laughter was a cold, cruel thing, like a famine in the depths of winter. It ate at Caleb, its jagged teeth ripping him apart as easily as though tearing through a wet sheet of paper. 

He clutched his hand to his chest, trying not to focus on the blood that poured from the open wound there. He was so cold, but he couldn’t rest, could never rest, not with this still undone, not with the Nein bloodied and nearly dead and missing and—

Lorenzo caught Keg’s weapons, one in each terrible hand. And he _laughed,_ laughed at the way her face twisted in horror. At the way Beau couldn’t quite reach him, slowly but steadily losing steam under the weight of her injuries. At the way Shakaste’s spells couldn’t quite take hold. At the way Nott’s bolts dug into his flesh as inconsequentially as biting flies. At the way Caduceus’ magic hardly affected him. It felt like they’d been in battle for days, and in a way they had. Caleb certainly hasn’t found much rest since the abduction of Jester, Fjord, and Yasha in the dead of night five days ago.

Caleb heaved himself to his feet, dragging heavily on the wall for support. Each step was a nightmare. Every inch forward carried him closer to the heart of the battle, pitched in Lorenzo’s favor despite there being six of them, and with each step the scared little mouse of a man inside of him shivered and shook, screaming, clawing at the cage of his ribs to flee. Caleb had to fight himself for every step, every inch, every breath forward. 

He came to the end of the stairway, staring, unnoticed, into the fray. 

Beau bled profusely from a crack along her hairline. Her face was a contorted visage of pure, unadulterated rage and she clawed and kicked for every connection, for every landed blow. Caduceus, likely at the edges of his mana reserves, struck with his staff toward Lorenzo. Nott shook from her cover of the broken table, aiming her bolts over Keg’s head to sink into Lorenzo’s distorted, monstrous body. Blood slicked the floor in great gushes that shone a dull, rusty brown in the flickering firelight of the sconces on the wall. It filled the air with acrid iron that clung to Caleb’s nostrils, that burned down his throat to pool, as if congealing, in his belly. Keg began to cry as she struggled to tear her weapons from Lorenzo’s grasp, a soft sob that coalesced into a scream as she ripped her ax from his hand. 

Lorenzo backhanded Keg with an easy wave. She crashed into Beau, who only barely kept on her feet, but it was enough of a break for him to edge toward the door with a low cackle that made every hair on Caleb's body rise on edge.

With a shudder, Caleb raised his right hand, palm up. Though he could not tear his gaze from the battle, he could see in the edges of his vision the blackening of his fingers that crept up his palm, reaching past his wrist up into his forearm. His chest heaved with the effort to build the spell. Heat began to gather in his palm, his body growing colder, almost numb. His own mana pool was quickly depleting, and Caleb scraped for every last drop of power, every last crumb of resolve. 

The heat flickered weakly in his hand. 

_ No! _ Caleb wanted to scream. Would have, had he the energy to spare.  _ Give me this, _ he wanted to cry to the heavens, to all the gods who deigned to listen. His knees threatened to buckle under his weight.  _ Give me this, just this one thing! Help me! I can’t… can’t…! _

A warm, now-familiar current of air breezed over the sweat-slick and bloody hair that clung to his brow. 

“There’ll be time for that later,” Molly murmured to him. He brushed his thumb over the gaunt edge of Caleb’s cheekbone and pressed a soft kiss to his temple. 

The heat exploded into a roaring flame in his palm. Caleb fisted it, clenching tight as he drew back his arm. A scream burst from him and he punched forward with all his might, with the very last of his power. Something deep and vicious tore through his body as the firebolt arced from his fist to burn its way into Lorenzo’s body with all the hatred and pain and grief and loathing that stained Caleb’s soul. 

Caleb slumped against the wall and slid to the ground. Lorenzo was a conflagration of molten heat and he screamed, clawing desperately at the flames that ate at his skin. Scorching flesh and sizzling fat filled Caleb's lungs, sticky and cloying in his throat, burning him from the inside out--he would burn with them, the spell was too great, the—

A hand landed at his shoulder, heavy and comforting, a lifeline tossed over a raging, stormy sea. “Later,” Molly whispered, his breath almost blazing on Caleb’s ear. Caleb leaned into the phantom touch and let his hand join Molly’s on his shoulder. They watched as Lorenzo burned from the inside out, his eyes glowing with the same flames that wreathed his form. After several long eternities, the demon crumbled into ash that flaked and swirled until finally settling, silent and still, on the floor.

Caleb let the tears track down his face, and only when he was sure that Lorenzo was finally dead did he close his eyes, a kaleidoscope of reds and purples and precious golds swirling behind his lids. 

***

“I found them! They’re here! We found them!”

Nott’s shrill voice barely penetrated the fog that shrouded him. Caleb heard them as if from a great distance, grunts and groans of pain underscored by hushed words, the scraping of metal on stone. If he ignored the world around them, he could still feel Molly’s presence. If he kept his eyes closed, he could see the brilliant glow of Molly’s eyes. If he turned inward, he could feel the warmth of Molly pressed up against his side as they traveled. 

It had confused him at first, how Molly seemed to gravitate toward him. How Molly could set aside the fact that none of them trusted each other particularly much, but still could befriend them, make them all laugh, impress and entertain them with his stories. How Molly knew when to talk and when to be quiet, when to hold still and when to jostle Caleb loose from his inner world. 

How Molly was just Molly.

“Caleb, Caleb, look! I found them!”

“Go to them,” Molly whispered into his hair. 

Caleb opened his eyes.

Jester and Fjord held each other up as they stumbled from the cell into the basement room. Beau was at the cell further along the opposite wall, banging weakly at the door and yelling to whoever was it in. Nott scurried to Caleb’s side as soon as she crested the threshold back into the main room. 

“Caleb, you’re—oh, Caleb,” she said, worry scrunching over her wan face. “Do you need help up?” 

“I am fine, Nott,” Caleb said. He tried for a smile but it must have come across closer to a grimace if the heavy furrowing of Nott’s brow was anything to go by. Groaning, he splayed a hand over his chest and levered himself off the floor with the other, Nott’s small hands at his elbow. 

“Nott! Get your skinny ass over here, Yasha’s in there and I can’t get the fucking door open!” 

Nott frantically looked from Caleb to Beau over her shoulder. “Cay—” 

“Go,” he murmured, nodding toward the cell door. He watched her scamper off for a moment before lumbering that way himself, hands braced on his chest and belly.

“Where… Where’s Molly?” 

And with one question, Caleb felt like his guts had spilled out from between his fingers onto the middle of the floor beneath him.

He heard Keg and Caduceus make their excuses and head up the stairs, leaving the Mighty Nein in the sub-basement. Caleb turned woodenly toward their newly freed friends. Jester’s wide eyes flickered from his face to Nott’s to Beau’s and back. 

Beside him, Molly put his hand to Caleb's shoulder and gave a comforting squeeze of support. 

“Where is he?” she asked again, voice rising. “Where is Molly?”

“He… he didn’t make it.” Beau had to turn her gaze away, staring at the floor. 

“...to the dungeon. Because he’s upstairs…?”

Beau gave a jerky shake of her head. “We tried—” 

“—we really did,” came Nott’s frantic voice.

“We were too late.” The admission dragged itself to crawl from his throat unbidden. Caleb flinched under the wide-eyed stare of Fjord’s gaze. “We were too late, and I am sorry.” 

The silence was as fragile as blown Zemnian glass and it grew between them, a thousand little cuts at the ready. 

“Is… is that when we heard you guys?” Jester stepped toward Caleb, reaching out only to curl her hand into a fist against her chest.

“The caravan.” Fjord nodded to himself, his face contorting with a rage Caleb had been nursing for five days. “The fucking caravan.”

“We were in the caravan,” Jester said. Her voice broke into a sob. “We heard you guys fighting.” A cacophony of Beau’s and Nott’s interjections met her words and Jester continued, staring, unfocused, on some middle distance. “We heard people shouting… I heard you call for Molly.”

“We couldn’t see you.” The words scraped from Fjord’s mouth like stone upon stone. “We couldn’t see anything. We were stuck, and they had us gagged and bound… I swore I heard a few voices, but we were moving before we knew it.”

“We--we tried shouting, but there was no way you could hear us.”

Caleb shook his head. “No, no,” he said softly, as soothing as he could manage. “We are sorry. We tried our best, but... it wasn’t good enough.”

“We…” Beau wrapped her arms around herself and leaned against the wall as Nott worked on the lock. “We found the Iron Shepherds. We followed them on the road, and made a plan, and ambushed them. It--it wasn’t a great plan, okay, yeah.” She squared her shoulders a bit and fidgeted where she stood. “But it was what we had. And we tried. We really fucking did.” 

“We did our best.” Nott paused in her work, her hands falling away from the lock. She leaned her head against the heavy door. Her shoulders shook as she spoke, voice thick with an anguish Caleb felt in his very bones.  _ "He _ tried his best. Molly got right up in Lorenzo’s face and really--really gave it to him.”

The unspoken details festered in the space between them. Jester hiccupped a sob and turned to Fjord, who wrapped his arms around her. His own cheeks were wet, Caleb could see, and Fjord had yet to take his eyes off him. 

“And then…” Fjord started, his voice trembling. 

Neither Beau nor Nott answered. The ramping tension grew nearly unbearable, a cloying, clawing thing that threatened to smother him. Caleb slowly made his way toward Yasha’s cell, needing to see her with a nervousness that built deep in his gut with every quiet second. 

“And then?” Fjord asked again. “Caleb.” 

Caleb stilled. He stared ahead at the dark depths of Yasha’s cell. “Molly did his best,” he said, the words sapping the last of his energy. “And sometimes… sometimes your best isn’t good enough.”  Fjord sobbed--a tiny, shriveled, broken little sound, hardly more than a gasped breath. 

“We got cocky and underestimated our enemies,” Beau spat. She wiped a trickle of blood from her face with the back of her hand. 

“It’s not your fault." Fjord's voice wavered on the mantra, like he didn't believe it himself. “It’s not anybody's fault.” 

Caleb crossed the distance to Yasha’s cell just as Nott pulled the door open, the metal hinges whining as she did. Beau’s hand reached out and caught his sleeve as he passed her. Blood still ran sluggishly down her face. She nodded jerkily toward the darkness of the cell. 

“Yasha… she needs to know.” 

The question didn’t need to be asked for it to be heard. He examined her face with a critical eye. “You need to get that healed,” he told her. His eyes flicked to Jester and back. “Give her something to focus on, _ja?”_

She nodded again and turned on her heel to stomp through the room. Caleb heard Jester call to her from behind him but he didn’t look back, crossing the threshold into the dank, dark room. He fell to his knees at Yasha’s side and let himself slowly collapse to lay beside her, half an arm’s length away, and closed his eyes. He focused on the intricate weavings of the knock spell and, with a murmured phrase and a motion of his fingers, the manacles that trapped her wrists and ankles fell away.

Jester followed soon behind. He listened to her examine Yasha, heard her muttered prayers to the Traveler, and felt the familiar stirrings of her magic trip along his nerves. Yasha’s breath came easier, he could tell, no longer shallow and rattling. “There,” Jester muttered. Her tail scraped against the floor and thwacked Caleb’s leg by accident. “She’ll… She’ll be okay. She just needs to rest.” 

“I’ll stay with her.” Caleb swallowed around the lump that was threatening to cut off his air supply, the pressure that wanted to crush him from the inside out. “I’ll… so she doesn’t wake up alone.” 

Jester’s silence was a heavy thing. “...okay,” she finally said, sniffling. He could feel her eyes on him, their weight like stones upon his chest. “Oh, oh no, you’re hurt. Do you need healing? Why didn’t you say so!”

“I’m fine,” he tried to say, just as a wash of cool mana that smelled of green and brought to mind the sound of children laughing flooded over him. It seeped into his muscles and bones with a strange warmth that burrowed beneath his skin. He could feel the way his tissues knit back together, stemming the slow bleed that stained his skin with thick, clammy crimson. The heat spread from his middle outward, and in a moment he could feel his fingertips and toes again.

“Jester, Caleb,” came Fjord’s voice, soft, as if he loathed to break the quiet with his words. 

“I’m coming.” Jester’s hand found its way to Caleb’s shoulder and he opened his eyes to find her peering at him. Her eyes were wet and glassy, and Caleb felt it like a knife in his gut. “Caleb…” 

He smiled as best as he could. “I’ll be up soon. I’ll let you know if Yasha wakes.”

She nodded and wiped her face on her grimy sleeve. “Okay,” she muttered. “Okay, okay, okay.” Jester stood and the knife twisted with the way she looked at him, haunted. She gave another jerky nod before leaving. 

“We’ll be upstairs,” Fjord called gruffly. Caleb waved halfheartedly in the darkness and listened to their departure. 

Yasha slept beside him, her breaths slow and even, and Caleb closed his eyes. 

If he could ignore the world around him, it was almost like being together again. 

***

He laid there for an hour. 

The phantom of Mollymauk was blissfully, agonizingly silent in the shadows of his consciousness. An hour, and then he would rejoin the Nein upstairs. An hour and he would pull himself together. An hour and he could shove the complicated, knotted weave of his thoughts and feelings into the recesses of his mind, lock the door, and throw away the key. 

An hour and he would run from this demon as he did his many others. 

Something in him knew the dawn was closing in. The memory of the morning light kissing Molly’s hair flared, unbidden, into life in the confines of his mind. Caleb had taken the last watch the night before the abduction, just a handful of days ago. Molly had decided to sleep under the stars rather than in the confines of the wagon, and Caleb spent an hour watching the first pinks of dawn blush down on Molly’s sleeping face beside him at the fire. 

In this space, in this hazy memory-turned-wish tucked safely away in his mind, Caleb reached out. Molly’s hair lay strewn unkempt over his face, the results of his fidgeting through the evening, and Caleb brushed a lock of it behind Molly’s ear. Molly smiled and opened his eyes, his red gaze soft in the receding echo of his dreams. 

In this space, Molly leaned into his hand, a pleased smile curling over his lips. He pressed a kiss to Caleb’s palm, his mouth a smoldering ember against his skin, and Caleb almost pulled back. Almost, but didn’t. In this space, Molly sat up and Caleb scooted closer, and they both leaned in. Caleb’s fingers slid through the messy waves of Molly’s hair in an unspoken question and Molly nodded his answer. He heard Molly’s breath hitch in his throat when he leaned forward and pressed their lips together.

In this space, there were no orders and no contracts to fulfill; no revenge to be taken, and no mysterious and shadowed past to bring into the purifying burn of the light of day. They had all the time in the world together. Caleb slid from his perch on the log to lay beside Molly in his bedroll, and they tangled into one another with lazy, unhurried kisses and exploratory touches. 

In this space, it was always just the break of dawn. In this space, it was always soft. In this space, it was always just the two of them.

“You were the best of us, Mollymauk,” he whispered. 

Caleb opened his eyes to the dark confines of Yasha’s cell. 

Everything in him ached with a pain that throbbed through the very essence of his being. He turned his head to find Yasha, who still slept, unmoving but for her breathing. He turned back to the ceiling and took a deep breath that cracked his bruised and battered ribcage. Caleb gingerly reached down into one of his many pockets and pulled out the length of copper wire. 

It took longer than it should have to weave the small spell, but his trembling fingers eventually sketched out the right sigils and he bent the wire into the right shape. “Nott,” he murmured into his cupped hands, “we should bring Yasha upstairs, get her out of here instead of waiting for her to wake up in the dark. Tell the others. You can reply to this message.” 

“Caleb! Oh, Caleb. I was about to come down there and drag you out myself! You should come and see what we found. All sorts of good stuff, and some pretty horrible stuff, too, yeah. Oh, and Mr. Clay made breakfast!”

He smiled to himself and began the slow process of coming to his feet, dropping the wire back into his pocket.

Caleb was almost at the base of the stairs when Fjord and Jester arrived, the scent of onions and other ingredients traveling in their wake. Jester threw her arms around him and he grunted, stumbling in the ferocious agony of her embrace. 

“Easy there, Jessie,” Fjord said. “Give the man some space to breathe.” 

“Is she awake yet? Yasha?” she asked. Caleb shook his head. “Oh,” Jester said, visibly deflating. “Okay. Okay okay okay. Fjord, you get one arm, I get the other?” 

Fjord moved as if to raise his hand to Caleb’s shoulder, only for it to fall away. His golden gaze was heavy, shadowed. Unsurprising, given the last few days. Caleb met him with a solemn nod and they parted; he began climbing the stairs slowly but steadily as they gathered their friend. 

_ Friend. _ The word still caught Caleb by the gut, still sent him reeling in a way that could have easily been attributed to blood loss. They were his  _ friends. _ His, though he could count the number of months in their company with both hands. He had bled for them. Killed for them. Nearly died for them, time and again. 

Something stirred within him, a fragment of inspiration that trickled like a slow leak along his nerves. Caleb climbed the stairs with a new sense of purpose propelling him forward. He needed his bag, his supplies, a focus, his— 

The scent of breakfast wafted down the hallway as he approached. His stomach gurgled. 

And maybe some food. He would need his energy for the task at hand.

Their group of misfits sat at a long wooden table, trading dishes back and forth and shoving as much food into their mouths as possible. Nott snagged a roll from a bread basket and tore into it. “Oh, Caleb,” she said as he approached, her mouth full. She patted a seat between her and Caduceus. “I saved you a plate.” 

Caleb found himself smiling despite her dubious manners. He gingerly lowered himself into the chair, and by the time he’d taken off his coat, Nott and Beau had piled a plate with a heaping serving of a fragrant root vegetable hash, eggs, wedges of cheese, and thick, buttery slices of hearty brown bread. 

Beau passed him the butter crock from across the table. “You could use some more meat on your bones,” she muttered by way of explanation when he crooked his brow at her. She took another bite and resolutely ignored him, though her eye darted his way once or twice as she ate.

It was delicious, and Caleb could almost forgive Nott her bad manners as he shoveled as much into his face as he could. A mug of ale was passed his way, and he took that, too, letting it settle his nerves. Soon enough Jester and Fjord joined them at the table and took up their plates once more, Fjord directly across from Caleb and Jester to Fjord’s right. 

“We left her in one of the bedrooms,” he said when Caleb looked up at him. He jerked his head in a direction behind Caleb. “Helluva lot nicer than the floor.” 

Caleb nodded. “Ah. Good call, _ja.”_

Keg and Caduceus weathered the unending barrage of Jester’s questions with a grace Caleb was almost envious of, Caduceus telling them of his temple in the woods. Keg didn’t offer a lot of details of her stories at first, direct and straight to the point in a gruff sort of way, though her stony demeanor softened with every mug of ale and every pull from Nott’s flask, and soon enough she was laughing along with them, the tensions of the last week giving way to a reprieve for just a moment. 

Beau yawned inelegantly in the middle of a phrase, drawing amused snorts from around the table. “What?” she asked, defensive. “‘M fuckin’ tired.” 

“That raises a good point,” Caduceus said. He looked down the table at them all. “Are we going to rest here? It would be rather convenient.” 

“There are a ton of rooms, with beds even,” Keg suggested.

“What if they have friends who’ll come back here?” Nott asked. A note of fear colored her voice and Caleb leaned into her slight frame for the span of a breath.

Concerned murmurs rippled through the group, but after a few minutes, still, no decision was made. Caleb kicked lightly at Beau’s foot under the table. “So, Badass,” he said, a smile turning at the edges of his mouth when she jolted in surprise. “What do you think? Should we stay here, or should we go?” 

Beau turned an appraising eye on him. “Well, you know, I think that maybe you should decide that one. You’re the leader and all.” 

Fjord made a strangled noise, something between shocked and surprised. “Caleb’s the leader?” 

“Oh yes!” Nott said primly, clapping her hands together in excitement. “You know, Caleb took on a leadership position and has really risen to the occasion!” Keg and Caduceus raised their mugs in support of her announcement. Caleb’s ears just burned and he started to hunch into himself, only to be startled by the touch of a hand on his arm.

“I’m really proud of you,” Jester said softly, reaching across the table to brush her fingers upon his wrist. “Really, Caleb.” 

“I—I—” Caleb stammered, face flushing. “I just want to know what we’re doing, _ja?”_

Caduceus raised his hand. The table quieted around him. “Mr. Caleb,” he said, his voice a soothing balm on Caleb’s fraying nerves. He twisted to examine Caleb’s weary, battered form. “I don’t mean to be rude, but, ah, you don’t really look to be in a condition to travel.” 

Caleb blinked at him. “I, well, I do not always look my best, but this is…” He snorted. _“Ja,_ you may be right.” He glanced down the table, taking in the expectant faces that looked back at him. “We should… stay here. Get some sleep, take time to rest.”

Beau fist-punched the air. “I say we drag the mattresses down into the big hall, pillow-fort style.”

“Head out after that, yeah,” Fjord agreed. “We still have to deal with the Gentleman’s contract with the Marduns.” 

“Already got that covered,” Nott said. She eyed the dwindling spread of breakfast foods and snagged another slice of bread, stuffing it in her mouth before continuing. “Conveniently, Ophelia wanted to take down the Sheps, too. Got it all tied up with a bow.” 

“Oh. Huh.” Fjord rubbed idly at his chin. “Well then, that’s handy.” 

“Oh, so you really just wanted the coin, huh? You didn’t really want to come to find us...” The chuckle in Jester’s words was a forced little thing, and Caleb found something snarl within him as the table erupted into distressed noise again. 

“No.” The dishes clattered with the force of Caleb’s palms slapping the table and everyone quieted. His throat tightened and he stared resolutely at the dark wood, swallowing around the lump that threatened to smother him. “No, we did not. You are—you are our friends. Of _course_ we came for you. To think otherwise…” Caleb shook his head. _“No,”_ he repeated fiercely. 

A warm pressure crowded against his wrist. Fjord reached across the table and slid his arm to press into Caleb’s, a wordless wellspring of support. Caleb slanted a glance at him and pulled away to focus on his food again, ducking his head. Nervous chatter slowly rose around him once more and solidified into something halfway comfortable, and Caleb could breathe again.

“Caleb, you should see some of the stuff we found.” Nott fairly vibrated at his side, her hand tucking into the crook of his elbow. “Some of it is really good!”

Fjord coughed and cleared his throat. “Some of it looks fairly magical, too,” he offered. “Was hoping, if you had the juice…” Fjord wiggled his fingers. “Found some other stuff, too, upstairs. Might be worth something to someone.” The look he gave Caleb was heavy with implication, and Caleb couldn’t help the cold shiver that ran up his spine.

“Ah, _ja.”_ He nodded, mentally counting out his supplies. “That should be doable, _ja.”_ Caleb took another slice of bread and slathered it with butter before leaving into the main hall of the fortress. He had work to do. 

Drawing out the ritual circle was easy enough, even with the little energy Caleb could muster. Breakfast had helped center him, filling the hole that gnawed at his middle for a moment of respite. He settled into the middle of the circle, in the middle of the chamber, and began the tedious task of through the pile beside him, Molly silently trailing him to sit nearby.

“Bunch of shit,” Caleb eventually moaned to himself in a moment of frustration. There was no amount of gold or equipment that could equate to what they’d lost, what they’d gone through, but he had held some small glimmer of hope that at least there would be something good to come of the events of the last few days. He cursed in Zemnian under his breath and held his face in his hands, shaking with a renewed well of anger that flooded through him. 

“Hey.” A foot nudged his ankle. “Found something else--something you might like, actually.” 

Caleb looked up to find the bag Fjord held. He scrubbed his hands down his cheeks. _“Ja,_ okay,” he muttered. He closed his eyes and focused on the satchel; the spell percolated in his mind, whispering to him of the possibilities it might be until a certainty solidified within him. 

“It’s a bottomless bag.” The announcement was met with a collection of impressed noises; the others must have gathered in the main hall around him. He held the bag away from him. “Who wants it?”

A stunned silence followed. Caleb found his ears burning and kept his eyes closed. He waved the satchel again. “Who wants this?”

“What--what happened to you? I mean, I know what happened, I mean—” Jester floundered for words and Caleb looked up. The Nein sat around him and stared in various shades of incredulity. Jester’s brow furrowed. “But really…” 

Caleb huffed and all but threw the bag at Fjord. “Here. You take it.” He delved once more into his spellbook as his companions murmured amongst themselves. 

“How about I just… hold onto it for you, Caleb?” Fjord asked. 

There was a gentleness to his tone that made Caleb pause and look up at him, at all of them, where they sat outside his ritual circle, touching at the knees and elbows, almost as if unwilling to part even that much. Caleb ducked his head back to his spellbook, casting the spell on the remaining tools. _“Ja, ja,”_ he agreed, only half meaning it. “As tradition.”

Fjord hummed. “As tradition. I like that.” 

The conversations fell away as something plucked a chord deep within him once more. Caleb flailed for his paper and quills with shaking hands. He focused on the sigils that coalesced in his mind, each stroke feverishly building upon the ones previous as he wrote. Flipping through the pages of his spellbook, Caleb copied bits and pieces into the swirling lines of the growing arcane design that bloomed under his hand. A bead of sweat dripped down his neck and he wrote, his hand flying furiously over the page, until finally,  _ finally, _ the spell took full form in the expanse of his inner eye and cemented into being on the page.

“I have it!” Caleb shouted. A fierce pride rushed through him, heavy and hot like molten metal in his veins. He took up his chalk once more and shooed the others away. On his hands and knees he added to the circle of magic that surrounded him, smudging bits and rewriting others until the floor matched the diagram of the spell. “Ohh, I’ve been working on this for  _ weeks.” _

“What is—?”

“Does anyone have a glass bead? A necklace, a bracelet, a glass bead?” He twisted sharply in his excitement, tearing the barely-healed skin over the gash that gaped across his chest. Caleb winced and dropped the chalk from his fingers. “Jester, you have some fifty rings, are any of them made of glass?” 

She stared at him, stunned surprise plain over her face. After a moment Jester flailed her hands, taking off her rings before turning to search her haversack. “I don’t know!” She shoved the growing pile toward him. “Are--will these work?” 

Caleb sifted through them, growing more frustrated as he examined each piece, Jester and Nott both making offended noises when he let the jewelry drop carelessly from his hands to search through more of the pile. Surely,  _ surely _ there had to be something that would work, Caleb knew it. The spell coalesced in his mind. It was ready, and all he had to do was find the right focus to channel it. His worry ratcheted up with every discarded piece.

_ Please, _ he prayed to no one in particular. 

A familiar laugh played at the edge of his hearing as he found a ring that would work, a pretty piece of costume finery with a pearl of painted glass.  _ “Schließlich,”  _ he breathed. With a renewed ferocity he pried the bead from its silver-plated band, tossing the discard much to Jester’s dismay, and rose on shaking legs to stand in the middle of the circle.

“This will not happen again.” Caleb snarled the words, spitting them out onto the floor. He held the bead in his hand and focused his will on it; in a moment the bead began to glow with a soft, pulsing light that spilled from his open hand like sand to pool on the floor around him. “This will never happen again. I am making fucking sure of that.” 

“Caleb, what are you—” 

Caleb spoke the incantation and cast the spell, his fingers tracing a circle that the arcane light followed. An opaque dome burst into being around him, separating him from the others and cordoning off a rough fifteen-foot hemisphere that rose high overhead. He could see out through the wall of it perfectly, exactly what he wanted, and bit back the exultant shout that threatened to tear from him at the shared looks of incredulous appreciation that painted their faces.

“Holy shit,” Fjord breathed.

“Am I—am I drunk? Am I really seeing this?” Nott screeched. “What is this? Is everyone seeing this?” 

“This,” Caleb panted, “this is what I’ve been working on. Since Alfield.” His head spun and he wavered on his feet. “It’s not much, but it’s ours.” 

Jester poked at the wall of the dome. Her finger bounced harmlessly off the barrier, and she frowned, turning to circle the dome, testing the wall. “How does it work?” 

“Like this.” Caleb took a steadying breath and leaned through the barrier to pull her inside, his other hand snagging Nott’s wrist to do the same. They stumbled through it with their free hands braced before their faces. Caleb watched them take it in and snorted at the excited noises Jester made as she examined the dome. 

“Caleb.” Nott’s hand shifted in his own and she pulled him down until he was half-crouched before her. She wrapped her thin arms around his neck to cling tightly to him and Caleb only barely kept himself from wincing at the pull on his wounds. “You are amazing,” she said into his shoulder, her words spoken with such reverential awe that it made his eyes sting with a sheen of tears. He shifted to his knees and wrapped her in his embrace, his cheek pressed to the crown of her head. 

Jester’s hand fluttered at his other shoulder. “This is… You’ve been working on this since then?” 

Caleb nodded, glancing up at her. “Get the others, please.” 

Nott pulled away just enough to rest her brow on his and cupped his temples in her small hands. “I am so proud of you. So proud, Caleb. You are a constant surprise,” she chuckled weakly. 

He clenched his eyes shut against the tears that threatened to fall. Her hand moved to frame his cheek, and he let himself lean into that light pressure. “I try,” he sighed. 

Caleb could hear the others outside the dome and opened his eyes just in time for Fjord to break through the barrier. His face was painted with awe as he took it in. The others followed--Jester, Caduceus, Keg, and Beau all wearing similar surprised expressions. 

“This is, well, it’s a bit small right now, but I am working on that--but this will protect us.” Caleb slowly rose to his feet and waited for the room to stop heaving under his feet. “This is like, hm. Only the people I let in will be able to cross the barrier. And I can do the thread alarm, and cast this, and we will be safe.” He glanced at Beau and shrugged apologetically. “It isn’t, ah, soundproof, so—” 

“Caleb. _Stop talking to me._ Ugh.” 

Nott gave a low whistle. “You can do both?”

_ “Ja,”_ he said, breathless with the dwindling ebb of adrenaline swimming sluggish through his veins. She brushed her hand against his once more. 

“Great things,” she said softly. “I knew it.” 

Fjord’s face was unreadable when Caleb met his gaze. His hand twitched at his side, though he didn’t seem to realize it. He nodded, slow and deliberate as he scanned around the interior. “Mighty fine, Caleb,” he murmured. “This is… yeah. It’s amazing.” 

“Needs more pillows,” Beau announced. She stomped outside with a determined ferocity that only rest and comfort could tame. “Someone help me pull mattresses. And this thing better let me back in!” 

The others filtered in and out of the dome, some helping Beau in her mission and some heading back to the kitchen. Caleb caught himself from falling to his knees and gingerly lowered himself to the floor. He dragged in a breath that pulled at the edges of his wounds and grunted at the pain. 

The Nein dragged in pillows, blankets, mattresses, whatever they could find, and piled it all into a semblance of a massive nest. Caleb watched with a strange sense of comfort as his friends stripped from their bloodiest clothes and equipment, though their weapons didn’t stray far from any hand. Grunting, he began to heave himself up once more, only to find Fjord’s steady hand reaching for him. 

“Here,” Fjord muttered, wiggling his fingers. “Up.” 

Caleb took the support gratefully and let Fjord haul him to his feet. “Thanks.” He rubbed at his wrist for a moment and glanced at the growing pile of bodies forming in the mass of bedding beside him. “You should get some rest.” 

“In a minute. Wanted to make sure you’re good.” 

“Heh.” Caleb shrugged and pulled his silver thread from his pocket. “Ja, I’m, I’m good. Thank you.” 

This main chamber was large, but thankfully it had but few entrances, just two doors and a single window. Caleb strung the thread across them easily and tripped his fingers across the gossamer-thin lengths to activate the spell. He lingered at the window and let the growing light wash over him. 

“Caleb,” came Beau’s voice from behind him. He turned to find her crawling out from between Jester’s sprawled limbs and Nott’s burrowing body, everyone piled together like cats bundled up for warmth. She jerked her chin to the bed as she stood. “Get in there.” 

“What about you?” he asked, even as his weary feet drew him forward. Beau shrugged and looked out toward the hallway leading from the chamber. Following her gaze, Caleb found Keg waiting, tucked almost out of sight around a corner, her boots peeking out from her hiding spot. “Ah.”

“Change of plans,” she simply said. She gave a two-finger salute and stepped out of the dome. 

With a sigh, Caleb cautiously crawled into the mass of bodies. Jester threw her arm over his shoulder and pulled him in closer, and he went without much struggle, giving in to the exhaustion that weighed his body down like a lead blanket. Nott curled up behind him, her chest plastered along his back and one hand fisted in his shirt. For once he could ignore the nerves that trickled through him and let himself be held, hands and arms clinging across everyone, unwilling to let another of them go.

Caleb fell asleep to the soft, exhausted breathing of the Nein and Molly's long fingers trailing through his hair.

***

Their business with Ophelia Mardun was surprisingly easy to wrap up, in Caleb’s estimation. An escort back to Zadash and back into the relative comfort and anonymity of a bustling city, back to the dubious safety of the Empire. The Nein split themselves between the commandeered wagon and the spare ornate carriage of Ophelia’s train; no one liked it, a brief, terse conversation whispered amongst themselves outside the Estate Sybaritic gates had before they took to their respective conveyances. 

Molly haunted Caleb's every step. 

The closer they got to the fated hills along the Glory Run Road, the more Caleb withdrew into himself. It wasn’t just that he thought of him, of Molly. It was the way they all flinched whenever their eyes spied the horizon. It was the way Jester curled into Nott on their third night of travel and asked,  _ “we’re close, aren’t we?” _ only to sob at the answer. It was the way Fjord’s gaze darted between them all, counting and recounting their small band as if assuring himself of their continued existence. The way Nott offered Beau pulls from her ever-full flask and the way they sat in stony, buzzed silence. 

The Nein slept in big piles now, a mess of tangled limbs strewn across their bedrolls. Perhaps this would be the way of it now, Caleb mused, glancing at the dome that protected their group just a handful of feet away, set apart from Lady Mardun’s retinue. Their collective sleeping forms reminded him of cats snuggled up against each other, and the corner of his mouth quirked up for a moment

They would reach the grave marker in another few hours’ travel. He could feel it, somehow, some part of him still a student trailing at Ikithon’s heels, eager and overzealous in his desires to excel, to achieve, to please his master. 

To be perfect. 

To be _worthy._

_ "You count and focus and study,”  _ Astrid once said, a lifetime ago.  _ "It’s admirable that you are so driven, not a slave to something so ephemeral as feelings.” _

Caleb pinched the bridge of his nose, rubbing at the furrow there. Maybe she was right--and wouldn’t that be something?

Molly snorted beside him. A phantom pressure leaned against his thigh, the ghost of warmth pressing along his right side. “I say this with as much love as I can muster, but she sounds like a raging bitch.” 

_“Ja,_ well,” Caleb muttered, “I suppose we all have our strengths, Mollymauk.” 

A shuffle of feet had Caleb’s hand diving into his components pouch for his diamond focus. Caduceus emerged from the dome shelter, stretching in a way that made Caleb’s joints ache in sympathetic protest. Only when he had settled at the edge of the firelight and reached his hands and feet toward the heat did Caleb’s fingers unclench from where they gripped the diamond white-knuckle tight, the facets digging into his palm. 

“Couldn’t sleep,” Caduceus said. He smiled, his expression laden with soft amusement, and he looked over his shoulder toward the dome for a moment. “Been a while since I’ve had company.” 

Caleb snorted. “They can be, ah, a bit much,” he said, wiggling his hand, “but they are mostly good.” 

Caduceus hummed to himself. “I’m beginning to see that. They certainly are an interesting bunch.” He chafed his hands against his thighs before reaching toward the fire again. “You know, I don’t think your Miss Jester likes me much.” 

“Ah. Well. She is used to being the only healer in our group. I imagine it is a shock to see someone able to help her in that.” Caleb shrugged. “She is a good egg, though. Ja. A good friend. They all are, really,” he added after a moment. 

“I must have just met you all at an inopportune time, then.” Caduceus glanced his way. “I’m sorry about your friend. It sounds like he was a good man.” 

Caleb kept his gaze resolutely on the flickering flames, ignoring the way the ghost--his ghost--leaned into his side like they had made anything of the long, lingering looks and the scalding tension that bled into every one of their brief touches. “He was,” he said quietly. 

The fire crackled and popped through the ensuing silence. He could feel the gentle weight of Molly’s tail wrapped around his ankle like it had been, the night before the house of cards began to fall around them. Caleb clenched his hands into tight fists and focused on the way his ragged nails dug into his palms. 

_“Herr_ Clay…” he said, before he could think better of it, before he could stop himself. 

Caduceus nodded solemly. “Mr. Caleb.” 

“You may remember the day we met, in the cemetery at your temple. I asked you if you could help people out of the ground, as well as into it.” 

“I remember.” 

He hesitated, his throat thick with an emotion he couldn’t bear to name. He thought of the way Molly had leaned against him that night, sharing pulls from Nott’s flask as they watched Fjord and Beau coordinate dinner. Molly was an inferno unto himself, the first fire in a long time that Caleb could grow to trust. “Can you?” he asked, barely a whisper above the boiling sap of the firewood. 

Caduceus whistled, a low, swishing sound. “Honestly, I’ve never tried,” he admitted. “Not really much call for that at the temple, you see. I’m not even sure what could go into that, materials and otherwise.” 

Caleb nodded sharply. “Right. _Ja.”_ His nails bit into his flesh so hard his fingers ached. “Thank you anyway.” 

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Caleb muttered. He scrubbed his hands down over his stubbled cheeks and stared at the ground between his boots. “It was a fever dream, nothing more.”

In Caleb’s peripheral vision Caduceus shifted his weight, his face composed into thoughtful consideration. He opened his mouth, shut it and shook his head, only to try again a moment later. “It won’t bring him back in the way that matters to you,” he said softly, gently, “but sometimes talking about them, honoring their memory and telling their stories, can bring them back to us for a moment or two.” 

Caleb inhaled sharply and closed his eyes. Molly shifted beside him, his hand a phantom touch on Caleb’s knee. “Thank you, but no,” Caleb said, gutted. “Maybe… maybe another time.” 

“Another time, then,” Caduceus agreed. He stretched again. “Well, since I’m up, I can take my watch early. You can go to bed if you want. Get some much-needed sleep.” 

Caleb looked up at that. “I…” A quick bout of mental math told him dawn was still a generous handful of hours away, and a few hours remained of his shift. “I can keep my watch,” he said, defensive. His fingers dug painfully into the meat of his thighs. “I’m not so badly off that I cannot do my duty.” 

Caduceus leveled a soft look at him. “I didn’t say you couldn’t,” he said. His words were impossibly gentle in the dead of night and caught Caleb off-guard, pinwheeling at the edge of a cliff to keep from teetering off. “I said you don’t have to.” 

“Rest, now, that’s a love,” Molly murmured beside him, his fingers tracing soft, soothing circles along the backside of Caleb’s hand. 

A sheen of tears pricked at Caleb’s eyes and he wiped them away with a gruff hand. A flash of memories threatened to burn him alive, Molly’s teasing smiles and words growing more and more affectionate with every suggestion to Caleb for a reasonable bedtime. 

He nodded jerkily. “Okay,” he muttered, his voice shaking. _“Ja,_ okay.” He grunted and shoved up from the makeshift perch of a gnarled piece of a tree trunk. His hands trembled as he pulled his battered coat closer around himself and he left the circle of the firelight with a belated  _ “gute nacht.” _ He dragged in a ragged breath at the way the air pressed in around him, threatening to suffocate him, and lit a single globe of light, focusing it into something like a single candle’s flame and cupping it to diffuse the light out from between his fingers. 

The majority of the Nein, Yasha excluded, were cuddled as close together as they could manage in their individual bedrolls. Jester lay nestled against Fjord’s left side with Beau spooned up behind her, using Fjord’s outstretched arm as a makeshift pillow, and Nott slept in a tangle of blankets at his right hip. A bedroll lay slightly beyond the cluster to the right--Caduceus, Caleb realized, holding himself apart. Something in him twinged at the sight. Caleb sighed and laid out his bedroll, barely taking the time to divest himself of his coat and boots before crawling in to lay on his side next to Nott. 

Fjord shifted at the movement and blinked bleary golden eyes at him as Caleb settled. He stretched his other arm out and flexed his fingers in invitation. “C’mere,” he drawled, jerking his chin toward his arm. “Pillow.” 

Caleb hesitated. “Ah…” 

A snort met his pause. “Just get over here, Caleb. A snuggle won’t kill you.” He waited as Caleb deliberated, then sighed. “Please,” he murmured, something vulnerable making itself known in the single word. 

“Ah… _Ja,_ okay, if you insist...”

“I insist.” 

Caleb scooted up to lay his head against the firm muscle of Fjord’s forearm, only to be bodily shifted to come closer, Nott sandwiched between them and Caleb’s head on Fjord’s bicep. Fjord turned his head to look at him, meeting his gaze in the thin light. 

“You okay?” 

The globe of light winked out of existence, plunging the dome into darkness once more. Caleb draped his arm protectively over Nott’s narrow shoulder. His eyes closed, leaden and heavy, and a sensation of pressure pressed up against his back, Molly’s arm flung around his middle. 

_“Ja,”_ he lied. Caleb closed his eyes and let his hand drift down to the slight dip of his waist, lacing their fingers together.

***

The snow crunched like porcelain beneath their feet. Caleb hung back as the others paid their respects. Jester bowed over the grave, her brow almost meeting the frozen dirt of the mound. Fjord stared down at it, his mouth pressed into an anguished line, shoulders slumped so much that he looked  _ small. _ Nott knelt at the head and her hand dragged into the thin layer of snow, and Beau sat on her haunches beside her. Only Caduceus lingered at the carts, offering his respects with a bowed head. 

A groan emerged from the enchanted wagon, and it creaked as Yasha woke. 

“Oh shit, Yasha,” Molly breathed beside him. “Oh gods, Yasha, if I could keep you from seeing this, I would.” 

Caleb turned around with a sick squelching in his stomach as Yasha lumbered from the cart, visibly disoriented. 

“What… what happened…?” She shook herself, flexing what Caleb could only imagine were hellaciously sore limbs. “Caleb,” Yasha said, brows furrowed. She darted a glance around her and stilled when her eyes fell upon the others. 

“Yasha,” Caleb started, reaching out to her, but she only brushed his hand away and took wooden, jerky steps forward to the grave. He watched her fall to her knees without any measure of her usual grace. Caleb followed a few steps behind her. 

She was eerily silent as she bent forward, effectively half-laying across the grave. Molly left Caleb’s side for the first time in days and he glided the short distance to join the others at his resting place. He knelt at Yasha’s side and placed his hand upon her shoulder, a mark of intimate camaraderie that only he had shared with her in life. A soft, keening cry soon floated on the dead winter air, and it took Caleb noticing that her shoulders shook to realize that the desolate sound was coming from Yasha. 

Beau and Jester scooted closer to her and together they reached for her, hands on her shoulders and murmuring echoes of “ _ I’m sorry”.  _ Tears ran unchecked down everyone’s faces and they each leaned upon each other, each of them drooping vine and trellis all the same. 

Caleb watched, transfixed, as Yasha’s quiet cry grew and grew and _grew_ until she was screaming into the frozen earth. Even Molly gave her room, coming back to Caleb’s side. Her skeletal wings unfurled and burst into life, knocking Beau and Jester away, and she thrashed them against the cold ground, punctuating her anguished, otherworldly screaming. 

Shaking, she stood, the others backing even further away. Yasha’s wings stretched out to their full span, intimidating in a way that set Caleb’s belly quivering. Her eyes were coal-black when she turned from the grave, facing him, though Caleb was unsure if she actually saw him through her tears. Her voice trembled, reverberating as if amplified, a chorus of voices speaking from one mouth. 

Her eyes darted to just off the right of Caleb, and her lips twisted, unadulterated agony blooming across her face. She took a step forward just as Molly moved to her. Her hand reached up between them and Caleb watched as Molly took it in his own. Tears spilled openly down her face and she snarled another rumbling growl.

“I will find you when I am ready,” she said in Celestial, and though Caleb was the only other person in their party to speak the language, he couldn’t say whether it was directed at him or at Molly. Her black eyes bored into Caleb when she looked back at him. 

“We’ll wait for you,” he replied. His Celestial wasn’t inflected by the echo of voices the way hers was and sounded juvenile and clumsy to his ears. She only nodded tightly and stalked away from the grave, taking up her travel kit from the wagon. 

A storm flashed in the east. Yasha headed its direction, following the far-off lightning strikes. Caleb called after her, taking a few steps to follow, and she stilled, though she did not turn. 

“I’m sorry,” he said in Common. “We will wait for you. We will look for your arrival.” 

Yasha stood there for another moment, a silent acknowledgment, and then she resolutely followed whatever siren song the storm sang to her. He watched her until she passed from his vision into the rolling hills to the east. Behind him he could hear Jester and Beau talking among themselves, low murmuring joined by Nott and Fjord. 

Molly’s hand brushed against his own. “I was afraid of that,” he muttered, stricken. He also stared in the direction of Yasha’s journey. He scrubbed a hand down his face. “I never… She’s lost so much.” He crossed into Caleb’s line of sight and pressed his hand to Caleb’s heart. “Make sure she comes home,” he said. Molly’s eyes were bright and wet for the first time Caleb had seen since he had appeared to haunt him. 

Caleb’s hand rose to join Molly’s, and it was almost a physical sensation, their fingers interlacing over Caleb’s coat. “I will,” he whispered. “We will.” Tears in his own eyes, Caleb turned back to the grave as the others stood and began making their way to the carts, their requested break coming to a close. 

He passed Fjord as he approached and he paused, Fjord doing the same. “I… I think I will ride in the wagon,” he said, his voice wavering. He cleared his throat. “I need a few moments. I’ll follow.” 

Fjord searched for something in Caleb’s face, his gold eyes red-rimmed. “I don’t want you to be alone,” he murmured, bowing his head close. “Not here. Not after…” 

“He won’t be alone.” Caduceus approached with soft steps, coming to stand by Caleb’s side. “I’ll be with him. I’m driving the wagon, after all, and Nott and Jester both are riding with us,” he said, nodding toward the wagon. 

Caleb ducked away from under Fjord’s gaze, slowly approaching the grave and leaving the others to talk among themselves. He knelt at the head and reverently brushed his fingers over Mollymauk’s technicolor coat. His breath caught at the Moon card standing against the marker. 

“Fitting,” he murmured. His hand dropped to the earthen mound, right over where Molly’s cold cheek rested. Caleb’s lip trembled and he couldn’t stop the tears from falling, burning down his cheeks to drop to the dirt. 

“Caleb,” Molly said. Caleb glanced up through his lashes to find Molly leaning over the grave just opposite him. His hand brushed away the snow-damp hair of Caleb’s bangs from his brow. “Caleb, I…” 

Caleb gave a tiny shake of his head and a sob burst from his chest. He bit it back as best as he could only to break under the shaking of his shoulders. “I was not brave enough,” he muttered. His fingers brushed over the dirt, seeking comfort that could not come. “Not the night of the battle, nor any before it.” He sniffled wetly. “I wanted to be, though. That night at the fire. I was so… relieved… that you came to sit beside me. I couldn’t do more than watch you, though; couldn’t bring myself to make plain the things you brought out in me.” 

“Caleb, you know I… I wasn’t exactly subtle, on my end. You know where I stand—stood?—on that.” Molly chuckled, the sound pained and twisting like a knife in Caleb’s gut. “And then…” 

Caleb nodded. “And then.” He bent over the burial mound and pillowed his head on his forearms and shook under the weight of the last week and a half. “I don’t even know if you are real,” he breathed, eyes closed tight. “And I am not sure I want to know.” 

“Oh… Oh, Cay. Caleb.” Molly’s hand brushed through his hair gently. 

“If you are real, if you are truly a specter, then it means you are unable to rest, and you deserve more than that. But if you are not, then you are truly only in my mind, a symptom of… all this.” His fingernails scratched into the frozen dirt and his chest heaved under the weight of another violent sob. “And I can’t bear either answer.”

“I came back once,” Molly said. His voice wavered and he cleared his throat. “Maybe…” He trailed off, uncertain. “You never know.” 

A wail threatened to tear from Caleb’s chest, beating at the bars of his rib cage. He shook his head with a pained grimace. “Rest well, Mollymauk,” he whispered into the earth, and he bent his head to press a ghost of a kiss to the burial mound, remembering and echoing the way Molly had comforted him so long ago in the gnoll cave. “You are sorely missed.” 

Caleb slowly found his feet. He brushed snow from the rich fabric of Molly’s coat and, with a shaking hand, felt for the note he had left in the inner breast pocket. 

_ Your name is Mollymauk Tealeaf. You are a member of the Mighty Nein adventuring party. You are our very dear friend.  _

If Mollymauk somehow could cheat death a second time, at least he would have that to start with.

_ “Ich vermisse dich sehr, _ Molly.” 

Caleb allowed himself to linger another few seconds there, his fingers twisted in Molly’s coat, before turning away. 

The others stood, surreptitiously watching from the corners of their eyes, giving him a modicum of privacy and spying all the same. It caught Caleb off-guard and made him want to bolt, but he steeled himself under their collective gaze. 

He could be brave in this. 

Caleb had made it halfway to the wagon when Caduceus met him. “I hope it isn’t inappropriate,” he said, the first time Caleb had heard him so uncertain, so awkward. He looked between all the members of the Nein before turning back to Caleb. “I would like to do something in his memory, if I may.” 

Caleb gestured to the grave, his brow furrowing with confusion as Caduceus passed. Caduceus knelt at the foot of the mound, laying his staff at his knees, and pressed both hands to the dirt. Movement in the corner of his eyes showed the others coming forward, watching with bated breaths. Caduceus sat silent and unmoving for the better part of a minute before his hands moved. 

Jester figured it out first and stepped forward, teeth bared. “What are you doing?”

Caduceus bowed his head and breathed a plume of steam over the dirt. Caleb couldn’t be sure what it was, but something seemed to pass over them, something that brought to mind verdant green forests and long, flowing plains of wildflowers. He raised his hand to stave Jester off and she stopped, looking between the two of them, perplexed and a shade shy of angry.

“The earth will remember him.” Caduceus used his staff to climb back to his feet and dusted the snow from his trousers. He briefly met Caleb’s bewildered gaze. “Something will grow here. For Molly.” 

“That… is really sweet,” Nott hiccupped. She wiped at her face, blotting her tears away on a ragged sleeve. 

Fjord stepped forward and extended his hand out, palm out. Caduceus looked at it for a moment before taking his hand, and he grunted in surprise when Fjord hauled him into a tight hug. 

“Thank you,” Fjord said. 

“Of course." Caduceus awkwardly patted Fjord’s back for a moment before giving up and letting it happen. Jester moved forward to join the hug, then Nott, then Beau, and at Beau’s insistent hand-wave, Caleb found himself being swept into the group embrace. They took a shared breath, two, three, then slowly broke apart. 

“Sorry I was mean just now,” Jester said. A faint blush stained her cheeks a darker blue. “And I’m sorry for being mean earlier, too.” 

“Ah, don’t worry about it,” Caduceus said, straightening his clothes once more. “It’s nothing, really, water under the bridge. It’s a hard time for you all.” He smiled wanly. “Now, I might not know her as well as you all do, but Lady Mardun looks like she’s ready to leave.”

They sorted out their traveling parties once more; Caleb climbed into the wagon, sitting with his back to the wall behind the driver’s seat. Nott and Fjord followed close behind, and Jester took his seat in the extra Mardun carriage. Caleb couldn’t tear his eyes away from the grave or the gentle billowing of Molly’s coat, not even as the convoy started up again toward Zadash. 

Beside him, Molly leaned into his shoulder, his tail swishing between their ankles. Caleb moved to link his pinky with Molly’s and hummed softly to himself. 

As the grave fell away to the horizon behind them, Caleb added to his long-term plans a second event to fix.

**Author's Note:**

> ###### Super Brief Zemnian (German) Glossary
> 
> Schließlich: Finally  
> Ich vermisse dich sehr: I miss you very much
> 
> I bawled like a _baby_ while writing the last couple of scenes. 
> 
> Honestly, I'm shit at responding to comments. Gonna try to be better about that in 2021. Still, I really appreciate all of them! <3
> 
> Come scream about CR and my many other special interest fandoms with me on [Tumblr](https://ocean-in-my-rebel-soul.tumblr.com) or [Twitter](https://twitter.com/Ocean_SoulRebel)!


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